Bauchi Citizens Forum, ATBU Clash Over Alleged Plan to Scrap Faculties

From Paul Orude, Bauchi

The Bauchi State Citizens Forum has accused the Vice Chancellor of Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University (ATBU), Bauchi, Professor Ibrahim Hassan Garba, of plotting to close the entire Faculty of Management Sciences and some courses in the Faculty of Education Technology.

Speaking at a press conference at the NUJ Secretariat in Bauchi on Monday, Comrade Abdullahi Yalwa and Barrister Jibrin Sa’id Jibrin alleged that the Vice Chancellor, “a non-indigene,” was on a mission to destroy education in Bauchi State.

Reacting, the management of ATBU denied the allegation that the Vice Chancellor gave wrong advice to the Governing Council to close the faculty, adding that the allegation that the VC is a non indigene who came to destroy education in Bauchi State is also not true.

The forum said Professor Garba had misguided the Governing Council of the University into adopting the plan, warning that the move would have dire consequences on educational attainment in Bauchi and beyond.

“We are concerned and alarmed that the series of regressive, backward and detrimental steps by the university’s leadership have reached such an extent that the Governing Council has already communicated same to ASUU and SUG during a meeting last week,” they stated.

According to them, closing the faculties would deny thousands of students—particularly from Bauchi—the opportunity to pursue higher education. They described the plan as “a direct attack on the developmental aspirations of the people of Bauchi State.”

The forum lamented that Bauchi is the only state in the Northeast without a federal conventional university, stressing that efforts were ongoing by stakeholders, including Senator Shehu Buba of Bauchi South, to amend ATBU’s enabling law and transform it into a conventional institution.

“To have the university leadership introduce measures that attack this laudable effort is regrettable,” the group said, accusing the VC of frustrating resource verification for the Distance Learning Centre and nearly 50 degree programmes earlier approved by the NUC.

They called on the Bauchi State Government, traditional institutions, senior citizens, and all sons and daughters of the state to resist the plan.

ATBU Reacts

But the Director of Information and Public Relations of ATBU, Zailani Bappa, dismissed the allegations as “false and misplaced.”

He explained that the decision to streamline courses was not initiated by the Vice Chancellor but was a policy directive from the Federal Government, communicated to all universities last month by the Minister of Education,  Tunde Alausa.

The directive mandates all federal universities to return strictly to their original mandate—technology, agriculture, transport, or conventional studies, as the case may be.

“It is completely misplaced to say the VC is against ATBU or Bauchi people,” Bappa said.

 “The federal government directed all technology universities to stick to technology-based courses. 

‘The Governing Council only prepared the minds of stakeholders for this policy. It has nothing to do with the personal decision of the VC or the Governing Council.”

He recalled that ATBU was originally established as a Federal University of Technology in 1980, with faculties in Science, Engineering, and Agriculture, before later expansions

“Even when Professor Abubakar Sani Sambo introduced other faculties in 1995, they had to be justified as technology-based,” he said.

On the Distance Learning Centre, Bappa said the university could not risk investing resources into courses that might soon be scrapped by federal policy.

 “How can you accuse someone of refusing to fund a programme he initiated? Staff were employed, a director was appointed, but it had to be suspended pending clarification of the federal policy.”

He urged stakeholders to channel their efforts to Abuja by supporting legislative amendments that would convert ATBU into a conventional university, rather than attacking the institution’s management.